I'm Francis Lamb, and this is The Splendid Table from APM.

You know, I wish I remember who I heard this from, but a pastry chef once said,

oh, I have the best job in the restaurant, because all I have to do is make people happy.

Well, the best job may not be the easiest one,

as we'll find later when we talk with Tanya Bush,

a pastry chef and writer who's just come out with a terrific narrative cookbook

where the stories are a great read,

and the recipes are among the best I've come across.

But before we get to dessert, I have to have dinner, or breakfast or lunch, or a snack.

And our first guest today is famous in Splendid Table lore for taking his snack so seriously,

he almost got us thrown out of our studio.

Jorge Gaviria is the founder of the excellent Mexican food purveyor, Masienda,

which specializes in heirloom corn products and masa flour for home cooks and chefs to make spectacular tortillas.

When I interviewed him years ago, he was actually the first guest on my first official episode as hosted this show.

He brought an electric hot plate to properly heat up his tortillas before we tasted them.

And then the good people in the studio were like, never do that again.

Like we can't have you frying all of our equipment.

Well, he has since written a vital reference book on the foods made from the Mexican mother corn dough, Masa.

And I missed out on publishing that one, so I had to get in on his next one.

And that new book is a cookbook of classic and new school Mexican street foods,

written with the chef Fermin Nunez

and chock full of the energy of Mexico City. It's called Vitaminate or Vitamin T in English.

...